Strand 6: Women and Technology

1900 - 2009

Decade: 1900 - 1909
1905 Mary Anderson patented the windshield wiper
Mary Phelps Jacob's new undergarment

Decade: 1910 - 1919
1910 The World of Women's Magazines 1910 >
1919,Alice Parker of Morristown, New Jersey, invented a new and improved gas heating furnace

Decade: 1920 - 1929
1924 Anna Keichline patented a kitchen design that included sloped counter-top and glass-door cabinets
1929 <Anna Keichline patented a design for a space saving bed that folded away into the wall

Decade: 1930 - 1939
Frances Perkins radio address for Social Security.
Amelia Earhart promoted women in flight.

Decade: 1940 - 1949
Jacqueline Cochran was the director of women pilots WWII.
Nancy Love and WWII air service.
1945 Grace Hopper recorded the first actual computer "bug"


Decade: 1950 - 1959
1951 Bessie Blount patent a device, in 1951, that allowed amputees to feed themselves.
1954 Gertrude Elion invented the leukemia-fighting drug 6-mercaptopurine and drugs that facilitated kidney transplants.
1956 Liquid Paper - Bette Nesmith Graham

Decade: 1960 - 1969
1966 Lillian Gilbreth became the fist women to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
1964 Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was the 1964 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry

Decade: 1970 - 1979
1978 Barbara Askins patented a method of enhancing the pictures using radioactive materials
Rosalyn Yalow wins Nobel Prize for medicine.


Decade: 1980 - 1989
1980 Valerie Thomas received a patent in 1980 for inventing an illusion transmitter
1987 Ellen Ochoa invented optical analysis systems
1988 Patricia Bath transformed eye surgery by using a laser device

Decade: 1990 - 1999
1991 Ann Tsukamoto is the co-patentee of a process to isolate the human stem cell
1993 Betty Rozier and Lisa Vallino, a mother and daughter team, invented an intravenous catheter shield
1997 Patricia Billings invented a indestructible and fireproof building material called geobond.
1999 Randice-Lisa Altschul creates the world's first disposable cell phone

Decade: 2000 - 2009
Eleanor Smeal credits technology for helping to mobilize women.
Shirin Ebadi won Nobel Prize.